9.5 Million People Experience Flooding in Southeast Asia

Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries continue to battle flooding as a result of prolonged monsoon rains, typhoons and storms. Torrential precipitation and overflowing rivers have affected over nine million people, in what are being called the worst floods in more than 50 years.
In response to these events Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) has continued to work with local, national and regional partners to improve early warning and decision support for the affected nations. During this recent flood season PDC deployed VinAWARE, an early warning and decision support system which was specifically designed for Vietnam, based on PDC’s flagship technology, the DisasterAWARE platform. During this season alone, VinAWARE tracked Tropical Storms Nock-Ten (30 July) and Nesat (1 October); and Tropical Depressions Haima (25 June), Haitang (27 September) and Banyan (15 Oct), and also provided:

965 flood advisories, watches and alerts;

252 storm advisories, watches and alerts; and

2,212 high wind advisories, watches and alerts.

PDC has also provided direct support to Thailand this season through subject matter expertise, data collection, and by making analyses available to decision makers and emergency management practitioners through PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform.

For an overview of the flooding impacts sustained in the region see the following Situation Overview provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), highlighting the current status as of 17 November 2011.

Situation Overview

The number of people now affected by flooding in Southeast Asian has jumped to 9.5 million people. Since June, almost 20 million people have been affected by the floods in five countries. The number of people affected has risen dramatically because the affected population in Thailand has doubled to 5.3 million in the last week, which is due to new areas in Bangkok becoming inundated, areas of high population density.

Thailand

The Thai Government and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration are channeling water from flooded northern Bangkok into rivers to the east and west of the city center by way of which the water can drain into the Gulf of Thailand. The floods, which are the worst in over 50 years, have now affected some 5.3 million people and claimed 567 lives (34 since last Thursday). Thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes and move into government shelters while as many as a million have become unemployed as the floods have engulfed factories and agricultural land.

Out of the 567 casualties reported, 81 have been children. UNICEF says most of the child fatalities, 70 per cent of which were boys aged 0 – 17 have been due to drowning. UNICEF pamphlets with information on practical and simple actions that families should take to protect the health and general well-being of their children during floods, including the prevention of drowning and other child injuries, are being distributed to affected communities.

The number of provinces still flooded has dropped by two to 20 while 44 provinces are now in the recovery phase (out of the 64 provinces affected in total). According to the Bangkok Governor the flood situation in Bangkok is gradually improving and all main streets will be dry in two weeks. Parts of the city could still be flooded next year according the Thai Prime Minister.

Cambodia

The floods in Cambodia are the worst in 60 years according to the Department of Hydrology and the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM). Three quarters of Cambodia’s land area has been submerged for months. Water is receding in some provinces but an estimated 30 to 60 centimeters will remain for at least another two to three weeks.

It is estimated that some 51,000 households (1.6 million people) are in need of assistance, with many of their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Nearly 20 per cent of this year’s rice harvest may be lost. Water is the main priority for people living in isolated communities. Children are reportedly falling sick and dying as a result of drinking flood water which is causing watery and bloody diarrhea.

Viet Nam

As flood water in the Mekong Delta slowly recedes, government agencies, the U.N. and intergovernmental and nongovernmental organization (I/NGO) partners plan to conduct a joint in-depth assessment to look at any remaining needs/gaps and recovery activities, especially those in the livelihood and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sectors.

According to the Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control, as of 10 November a total of 85 people including 72 children have died as a result of flooding in the Mekong Delta since September. At this time the number of households remaining affected is 34,682 (about 173,410 people).

Laos

In Laos, flooding and landslides have affected almost half a million people, causing damage to over 64,000 hectares of farmland. The Government has conducted assessments of the impacts of the two typhoons that hit the country in July and August. Typhoon Haima affected six provinces covering 42 districts, 362 villages. More than 14.362 households (76,818 people) have been affected and 18 people died. Typhoon Nock-Ten affected 42 districts, and 884 villages. More than 35,980 households are affected (209,462 people) and 8 people died. The total damage from the two typhoons is about US$138.21 million.

Philippines

According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), the number of people still affected as a result of Typhoons Nesat (locally called Pedring) and Nalgae (locally, Quiel) is 990,705 families (4,594,901 people). Of this number, 482,827 families (2,097,532 persons) need assistance in varying degrees. Both national and local governments in the affected areas continue to lead the response and assist affected families with emergency relief items, including food. The two typhoons killed 102 people and left 28 missing.

PDC continues to monitor the flooding situation in Southeast Asia on a daily basis, providing flood warning information to both citizens and emergency managers via the DisasterAWARE Platform and Disaster Alert application for mobile devices.

What our partners are saying about us...

Willem Rampangilei

Chief, BNPB

As I mentioned when we met recently at BNPB HQ Jakarta, I want to extend my appreciation to you, to your colleagues at PDC, and to USAID/OFDA for your hard work and dedication – and for your tangible results – in building capabilities and capacities for disaster risk reduction in Indonesia, especially in the area of hazard monitoring and early warning.

Daniel B. Whitley

Acting Associate Administrator, Foreign Agricultural Service (2017)

"On behalf of USDA's Foreign Agricultural Services, I would like to express my appreciation and full support of the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) for its essential contributions...with data and support...we've been able to improve our global agricultural production and disaster assessment analyses, products, and decision outcomes."

Harlan V. Hale

Regional Advisor, USAID/DCHA/OFDA/EAP

"From a disaster management perspective, these agencies [PDC, HOT, PetaBencana.id] have combined their skills, have worked well together, and have created something that is really innovative, useful, and can actually improve both the disaster response by the government and citizen's participation in it as well."

“Keep up the good work. I'm using EMOPS (DisasterAWARE) in Texas to monitor Hurricane Harvey.”

Eric Yarrell

Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force, JTF-Bravo (2017)

"JTF-Bravo sincerely appreciated the HADR decision-support information provided by the Pacific Disaster Center during Hurricane Irma response… has been both timely and valuable support of current operations."

Susan Cruz

Director, Office of Civil Defense (2015)

"We are very appreciative of your support to our country."

Augusto Moreno O'Phelan

Director General for Policy and Strategy, Ministry of Defense, Peru (2016)

"Many thanks for your important information about the ongoing outbreak of Zika virus in the Americas."

"…thank you all for the assistance you have rendered on so many occasions to The BNGISC but more importantly to The Bahamas."

Claudia Mateo

President, Republica Domincana Comisión Nacional de Energía

"Thank you for being aware of our situation and for the sending of images for analysis."

William I. Clark

Humanitarian Assistance Division Chief, U.S. SOUTHCOM (2017)

Our success during response efforts is directly related to PDC's contribution. The set of tools offered by your decision support system (DisasterAWARE), the large amount of data, the modeling and assessments, and skill set of your staff are unique. They provide my team with great situational awareness in a timely manner, enabling rapid and informed decision making in critical periods."

Don Price

Disaster Management Advisor, U.S. Forest Service, Myanmar (2017)

"The big floods in Southern China are causing some real problems for Vietnam and Myanmar and DMRS/EMOPS (DisasterAWARE) is the best visualization for this regional flood situation."

Ana Ake

Ministry of Information and Communications, Kingdom of Tonga (2017)

"I was first introduced to EMOPS (DisasterAWARE)...during a HA/DR training in Auckland this year. I've worked with several tools and it is obvious that EMOPS is the only sustainable tool that is available and is openly available."

Dr. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho

Head of Data, Information, and Public Relations, BNPB (2017)

"Thank you very much for your support in Mt Agung eruption. Very useful to us."

"[I] wanted to pass along that the reports that PDC is generating are succinct and extremely informative. I've passed along to other colleagues in the HQs staff and other COCOMs to peak their interest. Well done!"

Christopher Vaughan

FEMA National Headquarters Geospatial Information Officer (2015)

"My sincerest thanks to the PDC team during this event. [Tropical Cyclone Dolphin] Your professionalism and dedication to the mission is to be commended. I'm sure we will have plenty to discuss/improve upon in the weeks to follow. Thanks again for all the support. Great job team."

USDA Foreign Agriculture Service officer

USDA (2016)

"Your suggestion that we look at PDC content and capabilities has really paid off. We partnered with them, and are ingesting their global disaster feeds into [Global Agricultural & Disaster Assessment System] GADAS. The addition of a couple of our own applications to quickly delineate impacted areas and extract agricultural acreage and population has proved quite valuable."

Jeremy K. Delancy

Senior Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Social Services & Community Development, Commonwealth of The Bahamas (2016)

"I wanted [PDC] to know that I used DisasterAWARE during Hurricane Joaquin and it performed admirably. Some further training will be needed for us to use it to its full capabilities. One of the persons who was quite impressed is Chief Meteorological Officer, Mr. Arnold King."

"I knew of 'InAWARE' and I am impressed by its capabilities. Information sharing in the humanitarian context is still a big challenge (especially in ASEAN), and the efforts you are putting to close this gap are highly appreciated, and indeed highly useful for the whole humanitarian community."

Kenta Hamasaki

The Consulate General of Japan, Honolulu, HI (2016)

"Aloha Julie. Hello. After the registration [for DisasterAWARE], I started to receive warnings such as Typhoon Meranti. That data contains necessary info and is so graphic that it's easy to know at a glance how the impact is. This is very important for our duties. Thank you again."

Jonathan Colwell

Goespatial Coordinator, DHS-FEMA Region 9 (2016)

"EMOPS (DisasterAWARE) made my day so much easier while monitoring [Tropical Cyclone] AMOS. Data that I thought I'd spend a good part of the morning digging for was available, as were the tools to draw polygons and annotate and meet the requirement."

"I work for the Virginia DOT as an emergency planner. I would like to be added to your distribution list for awareness products. I followed work during Hurricane Mathew and would like to avail our organization of your great products."

Jesse Rozelle

Program Manager, Natural Hazards Risk Assessment Program, FEMA (2017)

"Aloha PDC team: I wanted to express my sincere gratitude for all of your support during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The modeling and risk assessment support you have provided to FEMA has been incredibly helpful for our response efforts and our emergency management partners. I'm looking forward to a continued partnership."

PDC's support in the SOUTHCOM region and its commitment to promote public safety were unfailing during the Rio Olympics. [DisasterAWARE] greatly enhanced our situational awareness and offered an abundance of useful data and safety monitoring information."

Marcus Elten

United Nations OCHA (2016)

"I was impressed with how quickly you guys developed situational awareness products...quite impressed with your team's work."

Dr. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho

Head of Data, Information, and Public Relations for Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency, BNPB